Board Game Reviews & News

My First Stone Age

I picked up My First Stone Age for my daughter from Game Surplus since it was on sale and I had heard good things. We had actually never played the original Stone Age, but the concept seemed like something we would enjoy. It’s a nice game to introduce the concepts of worker placement, resource collection, and trading.

The board is placed in the center of the play area with face-down turn tokens surrounding it. The corresponding large, wooden pieces are placed in their designated areas on the game board. These pieces range from clay pots, stone spear heads, purple fruit, fish, and wooly mammoth tusks. There are also cardboard dog pieces that act as wild cards and can count as any of the wooden pieces.

On each player’s turn, the pieces are collected and used to trade in for huts that require certain goods. Once a player has collected 3 huts, the game immediately ends and they are declared the winner. Huts can only be built if a player lands on the hut spot on the board or flips over the hut token surrounding the board.

The youngest player begins the game by choosing a turn token and flipping it over to reveal its picture. Some tokens allow you to collect a good directly and others show dice numbers and then the player moves clockwise around the board. When a hut piece is revealed, that player can trade in their goods for a hut if they have the required pieces, then all of the turn tokens are flipped back over, and 2 token swap places. This adds a nice memory aspect to the game for younger players.

Overall, My First Stone Age is a great way to get young gamers introduced to resource collection games. We’ve played it about a dozen times varying from 2-3 players and it was always enjoyable. I recommend checking it out if you have a young board game enthusiast.